"DR will see you now" - The StudyCram Creator

I'm willing to share with you study secrets me and my peeps back in the day jealously guarded through college for unfair advantage because we're not in competition.

We're out of the school game. And if there's one thing I regret about my school days, it's the amount of time and effort I wasted through inefficient study. Time I could have spent doing things I liked, like biking, surfing, or wrecking video games, or that I could have spent learning about other disciplines or volunteering in my community. You don't have to make the same mistakes I did if you're wiling to listen and try something new.

Today I'm a medical doctor. I'm also a cartoonist, web designer, photographer, videographer, javascript programmer and currently undertaking an MBA.

Why I think Learning How to Study is Important

• You spend most of your early life in school; 9 out of 12 months each year. But strangely, schools don't teach you how to study or take advantage of school. It's bizarre.
• The higher you advance in school, generally the higher you're paid for the rest of your life.
• The more you know, the more you can contribute back to humankind. Something doesn't come out of nothing.
• You live once. Why make your time here more unpleasant than it needs to be. Overworking at school isn't a great introduction to your life to come.

Experience with Smart Drugs

My first observation of smart drugs was through contact with some German exchange students. They weren't your expected nerdy A plus guys with their wild hair, late night parties, black leather wear, tattoos and head banging music. A book looked like the farthest thing from their minds. But a strange thing would happen before exam time. They'd get whisper quiet and disappear to their dorms for days emerging at exam time and absolutely crushing them.

This awkward sum bothered me for some time. It didn't add up. But I finally cracked the unbalanced equation by talking with the girlfriend of one of them. She told me that just before exams they would load up on an over the counter diet pill related to ritalin and cram the work in a week or two before finals, sometimes staying awake for two or three days straight cramming. Then they'd emerge and crush their exams then crash for a couple days followed by another cycle of partying until the next exam period.

That was my first lesson in the power of chemical mental augmentation. I tried it that semester and it worked! But I felt uncomfortable with the unsupervised practice and abandoned it. The experience gradually faded from my mind... until much later.

As an adult in college I hit an insurmountable perplexing wall. I entered a course that it seemed I could not get over. Luckily my teachers noted some key behavior traits in me and suggested I get psychological testing. Turns out I had Attention Deficit Disorder and never knew until my coping strategies were pushed to their limit and broke. I started taking medication for it and my life hasn't been the same since. The exam I took at the end of that first semester of treatment was the easiest I'd ever taken. That's how I got sold on the idea of smart drug nootropics.

What has amazed me the most on my journey through academia is to find that at least a dozen smart drugs are available over the counter fully legal without a prescription and safer than aspirin. That has got to be the biggest secret in the halls of colleges.

I don't think smart drugs are for everyone. But if you're conscientiously doing your work, exercising, getting enough sleep, and still struggling, they're at least worth a look at.

Experience with Technique & Technology Study Enhancement

Technique can make an enormous difference in mental performance. My colleagues and I had to develop best practices and economy of study to survive through medical school. Unfortunately, after we graduate these techniques are lost until the next generation of hardcore students figure it out for themselves and reinvent the wheel. I endeavor to put these techniques down on e-paper for you. Some of my classmates were just born gifted but the majority were just like you and developed their mental muscles through rigorous training and technique. I want to show you how.

Technology can make an enormous difference in mental performance. You can't run as fast as you can drive. You can't write as fast as you can print a page. You can't paint as fast as you can take a photograph. That's the power of technology assisted study.

Over time I've picked up strategies spanning both and have laid them out in this site to make your life easier. You can thank me later.

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